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This blog seems a bit one-sided

Labour Scandals was born on 17th Fedruary 2005 to document various ethical, moral and competence problems afflicting our Labour-led Government. Labour Scandals is not linked to any political party, candidate or other organisation. However all dirt is considered, regardless of origin. Obviously I'm not interested in hearing of Helen Clark's glorious policies for funding the Royal New Zealand Ballet. In fact such emails will be deleted as fast as I can move the mouse.

TLB Ecosystem

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Since 17th February 2005

Wednesday, May 11, 2005

Doonegate

Tuesday, April 05, 2005

So whats going on with Labour Scandals

I realise people are arriving here surprised content isn't being updated as regularly as it used to be. Recently the service quality from Blogger/Blogspot has declined to the point where the post function no longer works correctly about 75% of the time. As the Sir Humphrey's blog doesn't seem to experience this problem often, I'm guessing the extra complexity of the Labour Scandals template design and the far higher number of posts are contributing to the problem. Whatever the cause is, sometimes entire posts can be lost and I simply don't have time to deal with that sort of a problem.

Until a solution is identified, I will largely restrict my posting to Sir Humphrey's. In the longer term, I still intend on building the LS database as soon as I can convince some volunteers to lend a (detailed, well-researched) hand.

Monday, April 04, 2005

Tamihere's revenge

Friday, April 01, 2005

Cullen resigns!

Michael Cullen has resigned:

Dr Michael Cullen is out as Minister of Finance after allegations of financial mismanagement were raised on TV One's Fair Go programme last night.

According to Fair Go's report, Cullen directed Treasury officials to hide higher than expected surpluses by misrepresenting Government financial accounts. Treasury budget analyst Bernard Ebbers said Cullen encouraged staff to dramatically lower the surplus level by incorrectly including the depreciation of long-term assets in the surplus forecasts. Ebbers estimated billions of dollars had been incorrectly removed from surplus calculations.

Prime Minister Helen Clark said early Friday morning that she would not comment until Cabinet is briefed on the full extent of the problem. Progressive leader Jim Anderton has been temporarily assigned the role of Finance Minister.

Thursday, March 31, 2005

Cullen ignorant on effect of tax cuts

Tax cuts stimulate growth in the productive sectors of the economy (ie non-Government), thus growing the total economic pie from which taxes are taken.

But what does Cullen think:

But Dr Cullen says Mr Key clearly missed the point made in the December economic and fiscal update.

He says at that time, he indicated debt reduction was flattening and that there was little room for large new initiatives.

He says that includes tax cuts.

Cullen has ensured new spending and manipulation of the surplus figures allows him to claim there is little room for tax cuts. He also fails to understand that stimulating economic growth leads to greater tax revenues in the longer term.

Blogger down for the count

I won't be removing Haloscan tonight after all. Blogger is having major technical difficulties, and I don't want to risk corrupting my template or something similarly stupid by trying to make big changes tonight. It will have to wait until Thursday evening.

I can't make new posts on Sir Humphrey's because of the same Blogger problem:

ErrorWe apologize for the inconvenience, but we are unable to process your request at this time. Our engineers have been notified of this problem and will work to resolve it.

Goodbye Haloscan, it was never a happy relationship

Labour Scandals has received over 500 unique visitors since I stopped blogging a few days ago (>1100 page views)... maybe I should holiday more often! I will be adding new posts as soon as I've removed the annoying Haloscan system.

I thought Haloscans 'trackback' ability justified the loss of proper Blogger integration, but I think I can keep using trackback through just the Haloscan website, but remove their naffy commenting system! bahahahahahahahaha. And I get to keep Bloggers commenting system, which is much improved these days.

I am not happy with Haloscan at all, especially the revelation comments older than three months disappear unless you pay them money. It always pays to check the 'free' claims of service websites.

I have officially invited Sagey and Bernard Woolley (another Yes Minister fan) to join the LS team. I am looking for other volunteers who regularly read the smaller news sources. I often find interesting little items buried on NZCity, XtraMSN, TVNZ, and the smaller Fairfax papers. Email me if you want to help. There may only be three months until the election. We need to get organised now!

In the meantime, I suggest you visit what took part of my 'holiday' to build a template for: Sir Humphrey's.

Land court will examine foreshore law

Clark has really messed with Labour's historical promise to support Maori issues in Parliament, which has previously given Labour control of the Maori seats for over half a century. The forehore and seabed issue also cuts to the heart of private property rights being usurped by a Government with only a vague populistic and socialist mandate as its guidance.

The foreshore and seabed debate may be opened up again after the the Chief Maori Land Court judge agreed to hear a claim from the Whakatohea tribe for 50km of coastline from Whakatane to Te Rangi east of Opotiki.

The tribe says they have Rangatiratanga and Kaitiakitanga, Mana and guardianship, of the stretch of Bay of Plenty coastline and therefore should be given control.

Sunday, March 27, 2005

Flickr hardware failure

Dagny of the Locke Foundation gets trashy

Look what some idiot called Dagny said to me after I pointed out the tone of some of the Locke Foundations comments might get them in trouble (I didnt say anything about Peron or comment on their alleged facts):

You look like his messenger boy Antarctic spreading those threats around, not a good look darlin', people might think the Libertarian message includes justifications for men getting it off with kids. Do you not care that he lied to you or did you know he was lying, is that why you think getting on a public soapboax and going all look at poor victim me, I hate kiddie rapists what worse thing could be said about someone than that they support something this horrible *sob* *sniff* violins wax on... poor Jim being accused of NAMBLA links, it wasn't his fault the previous owner stocked the shelves with it and selling a book does not mean you support the message, no, not even if you write the book for them and slam everyone who disagrees with them, and give them shelter and hire the poor pedophiles to sell your books for you....

Can you pass a message back to Jimmy-James for me sweetie? Tell him Lindsay's defamation papers must have gotten lost in the mail because they never arrived, he might want to resend them.

Erm yes. My reply:

I am not the 'message boy' for anyone. Neither am I a 'libertarian' or member of any other political group. Nor do I personally know anyone involved in this matter. Your tantrum is entirely unwarranted, and presumedly caused by paranoia as you have no basis to assume I am 'in' with any other people involved in this issue.

You're use of the term 'darling', and various other infantilising terms, does not de-bitch the accusatory tone of your comment, but it does highlight the nature of your personality to anyone reading this. You have done the Locke Foundation's image a great disservice.

I'd been trying to give the Locke Foundation the benefit of the doubt, but it will be hard to take anything they say seriously now.

Labour fiddling its membership numbers

If they can get away with fiddling surplus figures, hospital waiting lists, and unemployment rates then I guess their own membership numbers is a somewhat lesser crime. But what if the membership numbers will be used to calculate how much taxpayer money Labour receives for political broadcasting this year?

Pre-ACC personal damage suits

Skip forward to today, and you wonder how much has changed. For starters, everyone pays. Every business and employee pays ACC levies. Every car user pays with petrol and licence ACC levies. These levies go up and down not based solely on claims, but largely due to fluctuations in ACC's investments.

John Campbell's political bias

From the Sunday Star-Times of 14th Dec 2003 - "The importance of being earnest"

Who did John Campbell vote for at the last election?

"I was bewildered last election, I didn't have a clue who to vote for. I obviously wasn't going to vote Labour after being called a little creep by the leader of the Labour party. I voted for the Alliance. They're good people."

Campbell's favoured political writers:

"I admire essayists. John Pilger, obviously, even though I think he does sometimes use a sledgehammer to kill an ant, but God, he does it. Edward Said (literary critic and advocate of the Palestinian cause in America) I thought was brilliant, wonderful; (Noam) Chomsky, though I wish he was more accessible to people.

Campbell on news reporting:

If Campbell has his way, we could be seeing more Corngate-style interviews on our screens. Or even more radical, quite subjective news.

"I think the old style, the old model, of dispassionate, objective reporting is passing. I believe that, by and large, it was a fraud anyway and that we can always see the pro-establishment bias of the media.

and...

We report everything now, in almost all branches of media, almost all the time, without context and without history and without analysis. We report everything as if it were spot news, as if it were a car crash. It's problematic.

The first kiwi blogged election

Richard Prebble comments on manipulation by the Electoral Commission, and the likely influence of kiwi bloggers this coming election:

This week the Electoral Commission will be determining how time and money for broadcasting will be allocated. Only the Labour and National parties are represented on the Commission. The Commission has always allocated Labour and National equal time and money. The official opposition is grossly over funded and third parties are handicapped. Both old parties supported a legal ban on parties buying their own TV time. Third parties are prevented from using the most powerful medium to challenge the two party club. The Commission colludes in this by refusing to allow parties to spend their funding as they wish. The Commission buys the parties’ time on state TV paying the full rate. (Which is why TV never criticises state funding). However, the Internet may break TV’s importance. Bloggers were influential in the US election.See http://bhatnagar.blogspot.com for the first election campaign video.

Queen WASP cuts motorway link through her electorate

I used to live in Clark's electorate, a year after Christine 'ineffective' Fletcher was voted out. At the time it had the best community facilities the Auckland City Council could provide, but I couldn't think of a good reason why. For example other Auckland suburbs in great need of tender road and path care were ignored, while Mt Albert/Morningside had a brand new community centre, kids playgroud etc.

Now look what has happened to the planned motorway extension through Clark's electorate:

Auckland's 10-year land transport plan has been released, with the State Highway 20 connection to the Northwestern motorway being dumped.

The ditching of the plan comes despite the Transport Minister confirming for National just last week that construction would get underway in five years.

For anyone who doesn't know Auckland, the entire route from the Manukau Harbour to the CBD is a gridlike-pattern of slightly upgraded suburban roads, which crawl slowly with traffic during peak hours. A motorway link through the area would help speed travel up immensely. Clark of course doesn't have to worry about such peasant concerns as driving in bad traffic. This SH20 linkup was designed to connect the already-existing Northwestern Motorway to south Auckland City, to allow traffic to avoid going through the CBD to get west.

I will try and get a map of this, including already-completed works, to highlight how stupid and selfish this 'Clark special' is.

UPDATE: More details in a TVNZ report. Apparently delaying the planning process now means this motorway extension won't be built for another decade at least: Business community criticises decision.

UPDATE: So the ARLTC is spending as much on new roads as alternative transport, plus as much again for road maintenance etc: Roads lose to public transport funding. Apparently ARLTC thinks they have a mandate for such high public transport funding, despite the fact most Aucklanders travel by road and will do so for the forseeable future.

More 111 call centre problems

You can be sure once every two or three days another 111 problem will turn up.

In the first case, the 111 call-centre was 'unable' to contact the police communications centre when an ambulance was attacked by drunken youths: No help for besieged ambulance.

In the 2nd case, the 111 call-centre did not pass on critical information from the caller to the ambulance crew. The caller wanted the call-centre to pass on her name to the ambulance crew, as she knew them personally, and the crew knew where her house was. But this did not happen, the crew couldn't find the callers address on their map, and the ambulance took 30 mins to get there (in tiny Queenstown!): Concern at 111 calls for new subdivisions.

I wonder which idiotic Labour Minister is responsible for repeatedly ignoring this problem...

Peron case to get murkier before clearer

A little-known group called the Locke Foundation says its got something new on Peron, and also attacks GayNZ's recent article on who supplied Winston Peters with the Peron allegations:

Yesterday the incompetent band of sockpuppets a.k.a. GayNZ.com let it leak, by breaching "in confidence" conventions of journalism, that the Locke Foundation have been researching on the Jim Peron Immigration Allegations in their 'story' The Peron Allegations: Part One: The Personalities Emerge.

Today Christopher Banks of GayNZ.com was interviewed on BFM about the his article that some people are phoning lawyers over. Banks said that if investigative journalists could not find any substantive proof on Jim Peron's alleged links to the North American Man Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) then it didn't exist.

Tomorrow the Locke Foundation will release what every investigative journalist looked for and could not find and what GayNZ.com did not bother looking for because they had made up their minds already - or was it because Peron is one of their writers?

The Locke Foundation claims to be a classically liberal Christian group (how does that work?). I'm aware two of its staff, Madeleine and Matt Flannagan, are well-known to other members of the kiwiblogosphere. They seem to be based out of Dunedin, and were responsible for the recent poster plastering of the Dunedin North MP's electorate office (not a good sign for their reliability).

Gay NZ will soon release Part 2 of their story on who supplied Winston Peters with the anti-Peron ammo. In Part 1, various emails on Peron from Lindsay Perigo were published and the involvement of the Flannagans was revealed. The article also says the Flannagans were going to air their new claims by Tuesday 22nd, but that doesn't seem to have happened.

So I guess we'll wait and see how this develops on Thursday and over Easter.

Cuba's brief experiment with capitalism

Following up on the socialist paradise of Cuba, I found this April 2004 report on Castro's brush with capitalism in the 1990's and early 2000's:

To cover a dramatic shortage of services, the government licensed many Cubans over the last decade to have small businesses, from plumbers to taxi drivers.

Unfortunately it didn't last long:

For a year [since mid 2003], Cuban regulators have been chasing unauthorized private entrepreneurs and heavily taxing licensed businesses like room rentals for tourists and small family restaurants called "paladars." Red tape has forced many out of business.

In the state sector, which accounts for 90 percent of the economy, a re-centralization is underway, as the government takes back decision-making power that had gone from ministries to state companies.

Doonegate
So whats going on with Labour Scandals
Tamihere's revenge
Cullen resigns!
Cullen ignorant on effect of tax cuts
Blogger down for the count
Goodbye Haloscan, it was never a happy relationship
I'm still on holiday!
Air Witch
7th Offender featured on billboard
Hunt likes his luxuries
Easter road toll at historical high
Land court will examine foreshore law
Flickr hardware failure
Dagny of the Locke Foundation gets trashy
Labour fiddling its membership numbers
Pre-ACC personal damage suits
John Campbell's political bias
Lianne Dalziel fiddles with the meaning of liar
Happy Easter
Comments and Trackback by Haloscan
The first kiwi blogged election
The Taxpayer shouldn't fund any parties campaign FULLSTOP.

The parties should have to raise the money themselves from other New Zealanders.

Safeguards could be easily put in place limiting the amount an individual or corporate could contribute, and overseas funding outlawed.
Peron in the 80s
no you're wrong, If there is an issue, hand it to the police, less of the vigilante stuff please.

I read a couple of the articles from that "foundation", i feel dirty just having read some of its anti-gay propaganda. yuk.

i think that people who call themselves Christians and then get involved in hate-thy-neighbour tactics are worse than scum.
They say they have handed their 'report' to the Dept of Labour and the Dept of Internal Affairs. We will see what happens.
Defamation by email
Queen WASP cuts motorway link through her electorate
More 111 call centre problems
Peron case to get murkier before clearer
Labour's pathways
Cuba's brief experiment with capitalism
The Vengeance of She